Torn and Broken

We were always together, August and I. For three years he’d been my life, been my everything. But that ended one night in a spray of red, a scar that washed away in the rain, as though August had never existed. I won’t forget though, and I’ll never forgive the ones who killed him. Not until their blood joins his, their bodies rotting somewhere out of sight, somewhere no one will ever find them.

2. Chapter 1: I Love You

The pain was immense. My entire body shook with it, my screams echoing down the sterilized white hallways as dozens of masked figures wove in and out of my sight. I pulsed with it, arching away from the lumpy, hard mattress beneath me in an attempt to relieve the pressure. The skin on my belly stretched taught as I pushed again.

“And you’re doing a BLOODY HORRIBLE JOB,” I shrieked back, my fingers clenching hard around his as I fought against my own body. I should have given in, taken the pain meds. But we’d wanted to have a natural birth, and in the beginning it hadn’t been so bad. Now the agony ripped through me like fire as my insides squirmed and knotted together, trying desperately to expel the child from my body. “YOU FUCKING DICK, YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS YOU DUMB FU-”

Another spasm took my words away and I finished in a scream, feeling something tear inside me.

“Almost there. One more big push and you’ll be done,” the doctor said when I’d finished. “I can see the head now, so just breathe in, and then breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. And push.”

I did as I was told, and a moment later burning heat coursed through my stomach as I felt my body rip, making room for something much too large. Just when I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore, it stopped and, with a sort of wet slide, I felt my child slip from me.

Instantly the room was a flurry of activity as nurses hurried to and fro, wrapping the squalling infant in a towel, measuring, weighing, doing the dozen other things that had to be done. I supposed they had cut the umbilical cord at some point, but I hadn’t felt it.

And then, only a few moments later, they placed him in my arms. My beautiful baby boy.

“Look Aidan! He’s a boy. I told you he would be. And he’s got your eyes, so big and blue and beautiful.” It was true. My baby was beautiful. His eyes seemed to take up most of his face and, when he stopped crying long enough to look at me, they shone the brightest blue. I mumbled on, my voice soft, moving my finger to touch his little baby hand. “Hello baby. Look, your daddy is over there. Come say hi Daddy.”

Aidan moved close again, bending down so he was only a few inches away, raising his hand as though to touch my baby, then letting it hover over the infant in wonder. His eyes shone and I was so proud. We both were. This beautiful creature, it was all ours.

We would raise him. We’d decided when I’d first got pregnant, after my parents kicked me out. We’d raise our baby, and we’d love it and each other, and we’d be a real family. Aidan’s never had one, so I think it’ll be good for him to be a father.

“What’s his name, Jamie? We didn’t think of one because you said you wanted to wait and see him first.”